Advances in photovoltaic technology, which are used to make solar panels, have helped solar energy gain mass appeal among those wishing to reduce their carbon footprint and decrease their monthly energy costs. However, the panels are typically fabricated manually, which is a time-consuming and error-prone process that makes it costly to mass-produce reliable solar panels.
Solar panels typically include one or more strings of complete solar cells. Adjacent solar cells in a string may overlap one another in a cascading arrangement. For example, continuous strings of solar cells that form a solar panel are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/510,008, filed Oct. 8, 2014, and entitled “Module Fabrication of Solar Cells with Low Resistivity Electrodes,” the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Producing solar panels with a cascaded cell arrangement can reduce the resistance due to inter-connections between the strips, and can increase the number of solar cells that can fit into a solar panel.
A back sheet is used to form the roof-facing outer layer of the PV module. The back sheet is designed to protect the inner components of the module, specifically the photovoltaic cells and electrical components from external stresses as well as act as an electric insulator, and is typically a laminate of different types of polymer sheets/layers. Strips can be formed into a PV panel by bonding the strips onto a back sheet, and arranging a glass sheet over the strips to form a laminate. Framing and electrical wiring is then added to the laminate to form a complete PV panel. However, precise and consistent placement of strips onto back sheets and glass sheets can be difficult to be achieved reliably in high volumes if performed manually.